Revenge Most Sweet
by s1ncer1ty
Summary: Why did Sirius Black tell Severus Snape to go to the Whomping Willow the night of the full moon? It wasn't an innocent, childhood prank -- it was revenge. (Ch. 4/4: Finally complete!)
1. A Breath of Silver

"Revenge Most Sweet"  
by s1ncer1ty  


* A/N: My goodness, but Sirius is a talker once he gets going! Despite the angst and the melodrama, I think this is one of my better pieces. This is a product of an overactive imagination, too much research on various HP Lexicon and botanical/New Agey-health-stuff sites, and one chatty animagus. I expect the next couple of parts to be finished soon.

The only thing I don't like about it so far is that it doesn't involve Peter as much as I'd like it to. Maybe part of it is because I'd like to see Wormtail get his come-uppance after PoA; but I think the other part is that I don't want to overburden this tale with too many characters. We've already got a hard look at Remus, Sirius, James, and Snape... It was tough working Peter in, even though he would have been, IMO, an integral part of the Marauders during the time period. Forgive me for this little transgression... :)

Warnings: MWPP era, no slash, angst out the wazoo.

_~ * 1: A Breath of Silver * ~ _

_"But you don't believe that I'm a party to the pain.  
How can you believe that I'm the innocent one?"  
__~~ Michael Penn_

Sure, Remus Lupin was a werewolf. So what of it? 

We'd known it since second year -- James Potter, Peter Pettigrew, and myself -- when James had finally confronted him about his regular monthly absences from school and about the scars that he used unstable magic to conceal afterwards. At the time, certainly, we'd been scared. There had been some distant words, some hesitant touches and strained smiles, but in the end, we swore to stand by Remus' side for better or for worse. 

Besides, as our fourth year at Hogwarts began, a more exciting prospect opened up for us. Our labors since that second year at learning the animagus transformation were finally beginning to pay off. Soon, we would be able to join Remus each month for his transformation, opening up yet another new and exciting door in our time at Hogwarts. I had already managed to transfigure my ears roughly into the shape of a German shepherd's, while one day James came into the Quiddich shower rooms sporting a bushy stag's tail at the small of his back. 

We were at the top of the world, it seemed. Although acing our classes (all but Peter, who, while not a poor student by nature, seemed to lack the innately strong sense of magic the rest of us possessed), the four of us were also rampant pranksters, dousing the halls with whipped cream or turning the crotchety caretaker's nasty cat fluorescent pink. At some point, in one of our many extended visits to Professor MacGonagall's office after replacing Professor Capelli's hairpiece with a sleeping badger, she declared our disheveled, snickering group of friends, "Naught but a bunch of mad, unruly marauders!" That was it -- the name stuck. 

Of course, we all disliked Potions, especially on Thursdays when we had double Potions with the Slytherins. No one despised and loathed the class more than Remus, who found himself nearly every session at the mercy of our relentless professor, a potions master and former Slytherin by the name of Edgar Adder. He was almost exaggeratedly tall, with long limbs, thick hands, and a face and head devoid of all hair. The man was your typical Slytherin -- cold and calculatingly cruel to all but his own house. He was a nasty man, strict beyond necessity, yet at the same time a brilliant master of Potions. 

Unfortunately, his ire often fell upon those less fortunate in the realm of Potions. Remus in particular seemed to draw his wrath, and although he wasn't terrible at Potions, the persistent ridicule and snarky comments from Adder unnerved him, made him accident prone and overly analytical. Later, after classes, we would theorize that Adder held a particular dislike for Remus due to his lycanthropy, which Remus had told us years ago that every Hogwarts professor was well aware of. Perhaps, I hypothesized, Adder was simply a product of a hateful wizarding community that was taught to fear werewolves. James, on the other hand, felt that Remus was merely a symbol of his failure and his inability to brew a potion that would cure _anything_, including lycanthropy. 

Whatever the reason, Adder's hate for him became all too apparent one day when, in a fourth-year double Potions session, a cruel trick brought about by one of his precious Slytherin students nearly cost Remus Lupin his life. 

That day, as always, Adder swept through the back entryway of the cold dungeon, his mere presence serving to break apart any and all conversation -- none of which was ever cheery among the Gryffindors, to say the least. His black robes billowed behind him, and, although large, his feet made no sound as he practically glided across the stone floor. Upon reaching the front of the classroom, he steepled his thick fingers in front of him and gave a cold survey of the class before ultimately settling his gaze upon Remus. 

"Today, we will be concocting a potion known as _Collodius Panacea_," Adder intoned in his soft, sinister voice. "It is a complicated one, as are all potions that cleanse the body of ingested poisons. The main ingredients we will be working with today will be buckthorn seed, leech secretion, and silver dust." 

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Remus stiffen at the mention of silver. For him -- with the lycanthropic condition he tried so hard to hide -- even the smallest contact with silver was a dangerous prospect. If Remus managed to make it through class without falling to pieces, it would be a miracle. 

"Don't worry, Remy," I whispered as softly as I could. "You can pair with me. I'll do the dirty work, okay?" 

Remus nodded to me with a look of relief, although bright fear still shimmered in his eyes. 

"Mr. Lupin, I'm sure what you have to say to Mr. Black is much more important than learning the proper means to handle silver dust," interrupted Adder with a dark glare in Remus' direction. "I would think that you of all people would want to pay complete attention, given the ... delicate nature of this potion." 

"Yes, sir. Of course, sir," Remus said softly. Despite his innate fear of Potions class and of balding, sinister Adder, he held his head high, as always, and tried to keep his visible terror to a minimum. 

"Since you obviously cannot be trusted to pay attention, you will no longer partner with Mr. Black," said Adder smoothly. "Perhaps you can learn a thing or two from Severus Snape." 

Remus' grey face paled even further. Snape was a haughty, backbiting Slytherin with greasy hair and a large, hooked nose. Along with his cohorts, he had dedicated his school career to causing trouble for our group of Marauders, and we, in turn, pranked him at every turn. The most recent escapade involved enchanting his drink during one of our great suppers with a limerick hex, which made him speak in lewd rhyme for the rest of the day. Needless to say, we were not favorites in each other's books... 

"Get the fire started," Snape hissed to Remus once he had brought his equipment to the opposite table. "I'll go to the storeroom. _Try_ not to muck up the base infusion, like you _always_ do." 

I shifted a seat over, quickly claiming James as my double-session experiment partner before Peter or someone else did. There was a single row of desks separating our work station from Remus and Snape's, but it was the closest, in the event Snape tried something sneaky. 

As the class set to work on their colloidus potions, and Snape busied himself with raiding the potions storeroom for the best ingredients, Remus stood from his seat and quietly, hesitantly approached Adder's desk. 

"Excuse me, professor?" 

"What is it now, Mr. Lupin?" Adder asked with a roll of his eyes towards Remus. 

"I don't believe I can do this experiment today, sir," Remus said, his voice no more than a hushed murmur. "It's just -- the ingredients --" 

"I expect the same performance from you that I expect from every other member of my class, Mr. Lupin. _No_ exceptions." Adder's bald head ducked dismissively down once again, and he wrapped his thickly callused fingers around a black quill upon his desk. "Unless you'd like detention. _My_ detention. Maybe even points taken away from your house." 

"No, sir. Of course not, sir," Remus murmured, defeated, and he crept back to his seat, looking for all the world like a prisoner doomed to life in Azkaban. 

As James and I concentrated on simmering the complicated potion in the cauldron before us, I snuck periodic glances in the direction of Remus and Snape. It didn't escape my attention that, as he left the storeroom, Snape's inky black eyes had remained trained on Remus the entire time he'd been at Adder's desk. He may have been a git and a bastard, but he -- like his mentor Adder -- was an intelligent bastard, the worst kind of bastard there was. And as he stared at Remus, I knew that the gears were turning in his head. He was up to something. He was always up to something. 

It took until halfway through the class for Snape to make his move, when most of us were busy straining the lumps in our potion through cheesecloth. He'd allowed Remus the "honor" of handling this task, smirking as Remus handled the cauldron as if it would detonate at any given second. Once Remus had settled the cauldron back onto its tripod over the fire, Snape glanced around the room, as if in search of anyone who might be watching him. Out of the corner of my eye I saw his elbow deliberately edge towards the beaker of silver dust. 

My eyes widened as I realized what the Slytherin was up to, but before I could give James a sharp nudge to the shoulder to get his attention -- or to shout out a warning to Remus -- the beaker slid from the edge of the table, hit the stone floor of the dungeon, and shattered at Remus' feet, sending a fine cloud of millions of silver filaments -- like minuscule daggers -- into the air. 

Remus staggered backwards with a stunned gasp, but not before the cloud of silver dust billowed straight into his eyes, pulled down into his lungs. His hands weakly fanned at the air as a choked, strangled noise broke from his chest, eyes already spilling over with tears of pain. 

James reached him first, his sharp Seeker's reflexes allowing him to deftly circle the desks that separated our workstation from Remus', and he looped an arm firmly across his shoulders. Remus doubled over, fingers hooking into the collar of his robes and tugging in an attempt to loosen them, barely managing to fall into the chair James pulled aside for him. My heart nearly stopped beating entirely as his strangled wheezes caught in his throat -- chest hitching silently -- before a sudden gasp and a violent fit of coughing overcame him. 

By then, the class had gone silent, the Gryffindors sitting in wide-eyed dread, while the Slytherin students rolled their eyes at the interruption. And at the center of it all, I realized as I gazed about the classroom, was Severus Snape. 

_Snape_. That smug, smirking mass of bubotuber pus. His arms crossed atop his chest, his permanent sneer quirked into a bemused leer, as he watched Remus struggling to breathe. Just watching the slimeball laughing -- _laughing_ -- at what he'd done to a fellow Marauder made me want to break his oversized nose in as many places as possible. 

He knew it. He _knew_ about Remus. This was more than just revenge for the limerick hex several nights before, and more than a prank upon day-one rivals. This was a distinct attempt to snuff out Remus' life. 

I was going to kill him. 

Vaulting over the desktop that stood between us, I pulled my arm back to determine exactly how many breaks I could land on that hooked nose in a single blow, when a large black-clad form materialized between us. 

"And just why have you left your work station, Mr. Black?" the voice of Adder intoned above me. 

"Professor, you don't understand!" I gasped, dropping my raised fist immediately. "Remus is --" 

"Sorely testing my patience with his clumsiness. Five points from Gryffindor for breaking yet another beaker, Mr. Lupin." 

But Remus didn't hear him -- couldn't hear him -- as he struggled violently against James' grasp, one hand still tugging at the swiftly tearing collar of his robes, the other cupped firmly over his mouth as he fought to contain his painful coughing. James met my eye frantically, pulling his wand out of his robes with a free hand and nodding to Adder, who was raising a hairless brow in my direction, his back to the two. 

_Distract him_, James silently mouthed around Adder's figure, his eyes frightfully wide behind his horn-rimmed glasses. 

I snapped my gaze immediately back to Adder and sputtered in protest, "But -- but Professor, it wasn't Remus --" 

Out of the corner of my eye, I perceived the subtle flick of James' wand for one of his infamous transfiguration spells. 

"Or are you too much of a jerk to realize that your precious Snape was the one who broke your beaker?" I suddenly blurted out in a voice loud enough to drown out James' hurriedly whispered incantation. 

"Another five points from Gryffindor for your backtalk," Adder said, without even raising his voice. "Don't test me, Mr. Black." 

"Remus needs to see Madam Pomfrey!" James cried in sudden alarm, still firmly holding fast to Remus as his breath came in hitching wheezes and strangled coughs. James' wand was already hidden fast within the folds of his robes. "Professor, I don't know what was in that beaker, but it wasn't silver dust!" 

"What?" Adder spun in a swirl of black robes and knelt beside the shattered beaker. His fingers trailed through the grey-colored dust upon the floor before he brought them to the tip of his tongue. 

"Mandragora root," he whispered, glaring accusingly first at James, then at myself. "Severus, fetch Madam Pomfrey at your leisure. And when you reach her, do have her bring Mr. Lupin's medical records as well."

"As you wish," Snape said in a dull, shocked murmur, his surprised black eyes betraying the façade of calm that masked the rest of his face. "But, professor, my potion..." He trailed off dramatically, affecting an expression of dismay. 

"No demerits will be taken from you, Severus, for your partner's incompetence," Adder said. "The rest of you, back to your work!" 

Snape slipped out the door with a sly smile and a triumphant look in his eyes. And as the remainder of the class returned to their experiments -- the Slytherins with impatient relief, and the Gryffindors with great reluctance -- I joined James at Remus' side, placing a hand upon his shaking back and rubbing it carefully. 

"Mr. Black and Mr. Potter, I suggest, if you do not wish for failure, that you return to your cauldrons immediately," said Adder above us. 

"Not until you tell us what you're planning on doing for Remus," James replied, his green eyes hard behind his thick glasses. 

"If Mr. Lupin's records show an allergy to mandragorda root, he will, of course, have to be hospitalized immediately. But if not..." He trailed off, and continued to glare darkly between James and me. 

"I think we'd prefer to stay with Remus until Madam Pomfrey gets here," said James softly. 

Wordlessly, Adder conjured his quill and a roll of parchment from his desk and placed several scratches on the yellowing paper -- likely our failing grades for the class -- before turning his back to the three of us and gliding across the cold classroom to where the Slytherin students were working diligently on their potions. I didn't give a damn -- Adder could choke on his precious _colloidus_ for all I cared. 

"Good thinking, James," I uttered softly, over Remus' shaking back. "But what do we do now?" 

"Sirius, Jamie," Remus managed to whisper past the crimson blood bubbling alarmingly at the corners his lips, "I'm going to die, aren't I...?" 

"You're not going to die, Remus," James murmured, giving the other boy's shoulder a squeeze. "Marauders don't let each other die. Not without a fight." 

"I -- f-feel like I'm going to die, at any rate." 

"Don't talk like that, Remy," I said, wanting nothing more than to burst into tears. "Try not to talk at all. You'll only hurt yourself more." 

"I can't believe Adder... Remus needs help _now_," a voice hissed in my ear, and I turned to behold Lily Evans, another fourth-year Gryffindor, staring down at me with wide eyes. "If that's a mandragorda allergy, he might not have the time to spare. Muggles call it 'anaphylactic shock.' Everything will just shut down -- his lungs, his heart, everything." 

I looked up at the Muggle-born witch, into her green-flecked eyes, and met only with unwavering concern, even though she knew nothing of Remus' true condition. "I know, Lily. But what can we --" 

"Get Madam Pomfrey. You'll be faster than Snape. I'll stay with Remus, okay?" She knelt at my side and took Remus' hand into both her own and forced a brave, comforting smile to her lips. "Hang in there, Remy. Nothing's going to happen to you." 

Nodding to Lily, I gave Remus' shoulder a squeeze and rose to my feet. I looked about for Adder and found him strolling the aisles of the Slytherin side of the room, inspecting their simmering potions and marking notes on a piece of parchment as he went along, oblivious to the fact that one of his students was on the other side of the room in severe pain, if not dying. 

"Why aren't you using floo powder to call Madam Pomfrey?" I accused, narrowing my eyes at Adder. 

Adder glanced up from the colloidus potion that he'd been carefully appraising in a Slytherin pair's cauldron. "Why am I not calling for Pomfrey myself?" he repeated, setting aside his parchment and quill and inclining his head towards me. "Because, Mr. Black, somehow I don't believe that Mr. Lupin's malady is quite believable." 

"How -- how can you not believe it?" I gasped, stiffening with shock, with steadily mounting anger, at what I was hearing. 

"I also find it inconceivable that the top student in this class could mistake silver dust for mandragorda root in the supply cabinet. If you ask me," he continued, sliding across the floor and looming down at me, "you, Mr. Lupin, and Mr. Potter are up to something. I _don_'t like it." 

"Well, if you're not going to go find Madam Pomfrey, then I will! I'll certainly be a lot faster than your 'leisurely, top student,'" I snapped, roughly pushing past my own professor as I moved towards the door. It was grounds for demerits -- maybe even expulsion -- but I didn't care. 

"I'm warning you, Mr. Black," Adder drawled in his softly malicious, unruffled voice, "if you so much as step one foot outside this classroom, I'll make certain to take enough points from Gryffindor to ensure that your chances for winning House Cup are _nothing_." 

Hands clenching in twin fists at my sides, I stared with all incredulousness at the dark Potions master, and he met my gaze with towering aloofness. My breath came in stunted gasps, and I tore my eyes away and looked to my classmates, as if searching for the answer. James and Lily, each on either side of Remus, nodded at me in assent, as did Peter Pettigrew and Arabella Figg from their shared cauldron. Even Mundungus Fletcher, one of the most competitive students when it came to House Cup points, looked at me hard and nodded -- all of Gryffindor was enamored with quiet, gentle Remus, and none wanted to see him come to harm, even at the risk of the House Cup. 

But it was Remus himself -- the fear that shimmered in his grey eyes, the hitching of his chest as he struggled to catch his breath, and my own realization that minuscule filaments of silver still circulated through his lungs, tearing at delicate tissues with every rasping breath -- that decided it all for me. 

"No," I cried. "No! He needs help now, not when your lapdog Snape decides it's convenient!" 

And even as Adder shouted after me with threats and more point demerits than Gryffindor could withstand, I tore from the dungeons and ran straight to the Hospital Wing, as if the very fires of Hades were licking fast at my heels. 

...tbc... 


	2. If the Foundations Be Destroyed...

"Revenge Most Sweet"  
by s1ncer1ty

*A/N: Eep! Sorry, sorry! You know, even one of my closest friends -- who never hesitates to provide constructive criticism of my work -- only seemed to notice the thing with Lily and her eyes. Oops... My bad. It should be fixed in the original version now.

Here's a little more melodrama, a little more watching Sirius angst, and even a tweeking James at the end... Oh, and I should have mentioned it in the first set of author's notes -- sorry for the Snape-bashing. I do like the guy, really I do, but with this fic coming from Sirius' perspective, you're never really going to get a kind view from him. 

_~* 2: If the Foundations Be Destroyed... *~ _

_"It's over now.   
Yeah, we don't know how...   
It's just over now,   
There's no getting back to good." _

_~~ Matchbox 20 _

"Hey, watch where you're --" 

"-- don't know where you're going in such a hurry --" 

"No running in the corridors --" 

"-- points from Gryffindor if you don't --" 

The cries swirled around me as I bobbed and weaved through a thick mass of Hogwarts students and prefects that flooded the halls as the previous session's classes let out. I bumped into whoever got in my way, not caring whether I knocked them over, not even when I slammed almost headlong into a burly Slytherin fifth-year and had to dodge the thick stack of books that tumbled from his hands. I ignored his threats of throwing me into a permanent body bind hex, and kept running. 

I thought I'd never make it to the Hospital Wing. Shaking off the tailing of a particularly dogged Hufflepuff prefect intent upon keeping "order" in her corridors, I eventually burst through the double doors leading to the Hospital Wing. Desperately, gasping for breath after my sprint across the school grounds, I tore aside each and every curtain in search of Madam Pomfrey. 

I finally found her -- a slender young witch with a motherly eye and a strict, overprotective nature -- at the opposite end of the infirmary. She was using her wand to weave a poultice around a Ravenclaw first-year's arm, and she leapt to her feet when I nearly ripped the curtain off its hooks. 

"Sirius Black," she said in an exasperated voice I knew all too well, "don't tell me you've broken another limb on the Quiddich pitch. Because if I've warned you once --" 

I shook my head, breathlessly stammering, "Not me -- Remus Lupin... Potions class -- accident..." 

"Accident?" she asked, eyebrows rising in immediate concern. "What sort of accident?" 

"Se-Severus Snape -- broken beaker," I managed, my mind spinning. I couldn't tell her about the silver dust, couldn't let on that I knew Remus was a werewolf... not in front of the entire Hospital Wing, most of which had crept tentatively after me to the other end of the infirmary to stare. 

"Yes, Sirius. What happened to Remus?" she pressed, trying to hide her impatience. 

Finally, in a burst of inspiration, I spat out, "We were working on the _colloidus panacea_ potion, and something went wrong!" 

Her eyes widening in sudden understanding, Madam Pomfrey finished bandaging the Ravenclaw's arm, winding the dressing so tightly that the boy winced, and she conjured a chocolate lolly straight into his mouth as she bustled to her feet. "Come with me straight away, Sirius," she said, seizing my shoulder and practically dragging me towards the infirmary fireplace. 

A pot of floo powder sat atop the mantelpiece, and she grabbed a double handful before throwing it into the flames. As she yanked me through the glowing, silvery fire, she barked, "Potions Room! Immediately!" 

We landed all too swiftly, breaking through the smouldering embers in the fireplace that provided almost no heat to the drafty dungeons. Madam Pomfrey let go of me so she could wipe soot from her robes, and although I tried to rejoin my friends, she brusquely commanded me to remain at the fireplace. 

"Just what is going on here, Adder?" she demanded as she strode to the front of the dungeon, where our professor sat aloofly at his desk while James, Lily, Peter, and the other Gryffindor students huddled upon the floor surrounding Remus. I couldn't see his face -- it was, instead, blocked by the sobbing figure of Lily Evans. 

"And what is going on with you, Pomfrey?" Adder spat with undisguised loathing. "Severus Snape tells me that he was unable to locate you in your proper place in the Hospital Wing." He tutted and cast a glace to Snape, who sat like a self-righteous king before his cauldron. Again, the urge to beat his oversized nose to mush rose within me like a pall. 

"Severus Snape came nowhere near my infirmary. Why he wasn't sent via floo powder..." Madam Pomfrey trailed off as the circle of Gryffindor students parted, leaving James alone at Remus' side to face the suddenly shocked, livid, and ultimately terrified head nurse. 

"Ma-mandragorda poisoning," James mumbled weakly, unable to look her in the eye. 

"Sirius Black tells me that --" 

"Mandragorda poisoning, Madam Pomfrey. It wasn't silver in the beaker, it was _mandragorda_," James insisted. 

"I see," she murmured, and, with an unexpectedly gentle strength reached out to gather Remus into her arms, where he hung limp like a boneless rag doll. As she picked him up, I could see his eyes rolled back and showing only whites. The blood that he'd choked upon streaked his chin and the front of his robes. My heart gave a lurch, and, if it weren't for the rattle of straining breath, I would have thought for all the world that he was dead... 

"Headmaster Dumbledore will hear about your incompetence," Madam Pomfrey snapped angrily, sweeping past Adder towards the fireplace. 

"Madam Pomfrey, may I --" I began, tagging fast at her heels. 

"You may certainly not follow me, Sirius Black!" she said sharply. Then, her features softening somewhat, she glanced down at me and added, "I want you to send an owl to Remus' parents. When your classes are complete, you may come to the Hospital Wing, although I cannot guarantee that you will be permitted to see him." 

"Yes, ma'am," I whispered, and watched as she tossed floo powder into the fireplace's embers. With a swirl of skirts, she and Remus disappeared. 

I was numb as I finally walked towards my desk, the adrenalin rush and the urgency fading to stunned lethargy. Lily continued to weep, even as James slipped his arms around her, looking grey-faced himself. Peter, to his credit, had conjured a broom and a dustpan and had begun to clumsily sweep up the broken pieces of glass and the transfigured mandragorda root. 

After staring for a while at the cooling cauldron upon my desk and the congealing concoction within, I chanced to look towards Snape. The slimy, hook-nosed Slytherin went about his business of fastidiously cleaning his workstation, having received full marks for doing little to no work. When he finally caught the glare I directed to him, he merely returned it with a coldly triumphant smirk. 

But there was nothing I could do about it. Even if I'd had the strength to rise from my seat to punch his lights out, I wouldn't have been able to get past Adder, who paused beside James and me in his survey of the classroom's progress. 

"Detention, Mr. Black and Mr. Potter," Adder said softly, gliding by our workstation like a balding, menacing vulture. "Starting Tuesday and continuing for the next two weeks. And also, for showing your typical disregard for direct instruction, I deduct one hundred points from House Gryffindor." As he swept away, he turned and hissed, "_Each_." 

I buried my face in my hands, biting at my lower lip to keep myself from screaming, unable to raise my head until the end of the session when James nudged my shoulder and led me shaking from the room.

_~*~ _

The rest of the day passed in a daze for myself, very likely for James as well. Peter, who among us had held himself together the best, quietly informed our professors of the "accident" with Remus. I don't know what he might have told them, but most professors ultimately gazed at us with an almost heartbreaking sympathy and excused us from much of the day's work. Even Professor MacGonagall, the Transfiguration professor known her toughness -- yet unlike Adder her overwhelming fairness as well -- seemed shaken when she heard about what had happened to Remus, and she spent much of the class gazing mistily out the window while she provided us with busywork. 

After our classes drew to an excruciatingly slow close, James dashed ahead towards the infirmary, while I scribbled a note to Remus' parents explaining what had transpired as carefully as I could manage -- Remus had never told his parents that his friends were aware he was a werewolf. 

Dashing to the owlery, I attached the letter to the leg of Mundungus Fletcher's swift barn owl, promising it the fattest mice as payment in exchange for expediency. The tawny owl gave me a sharp, cold, affirmative look in the eye before lifting off in a fluttering of wings and speeding towards the Lupin abode in Nottingham. 

This time, upon leaving the owlery, I didn't run as I made my way to the Hospital Wing to join James. While dreadfully concerned for Remus, something in me had grown terrified to face Madam Pomfrey and the possibility that she would look down at me with sadly sympathetic eyes and tell me she's sorry, there was nothing she could do, but Remus had passed away... 

But as I entered the infirmary, Madam Pomfrey, sitting at the front desk filling out some paperwork with a bone-white quill, merely glanced up and sighed, nodding towards the private wing, where only the direst of medical cases were brought. My feet echoed hauntingly across the immaculately sterile floor. 

As I pushed aside the curtain that separated Remus' bed from the rest of the wing, I saw James immediately leap to his feet from a chair at our friend's bedside. "Sirius, thank goodness! He's asleep, finally," he said quickly. "Sleeping draught. He -- wouldn't have been able to sleep otherwise, there was so much pain." 

"That bad, is it?" I said in a hushed voice, even though I knew Remus would not awaken from Madam Pomfrey's strong sleeping potion. I inched closer to my the edge of the bed, where Remus lay curled on his side, his chest shaking in rapid, shallowly panting breaths. I leaned across and pushed aside several stray strands of hair from his whey-colored face, and couldn't help but notice the beginnings of grey streaking the mass of unruly sandy brown. 

"He was pretty bad, yes," James said, his voice quivering alarmingly. "Just after you left, there was -- so much blood --" 

"Don't go on," I murmured hurriedly, darting a wide-eyed gaze from Remus to James. I didn't know what I'd do if James broke down -- perhaps go mad, perhaps begin to scream, perhaps worse. 

"I can't believe Adder let him work with _silver_," James whispered. "How utterly careless! Not to mention cruel." 

"You heard what he said. 'I expect the same performance from you that I expect from every other member of my class. _No_ exceptions,'" I mimicked angrily. 

"But he knows about Remus!" James hissed, his eyes meeting desperately with mine. "All the professors know!" 

"Yes, but there's really nothing we can do about it. He's still a professor, after all." 

"What about Snape, then? There must be something we can do about him." 

I blinked at James in surprise, and it dawned on me that, while we couldn't exact our revenge upon Adder, there was still another target -- the one who'd orchestrated the entire incident in the first place. 

"You're right, Jamie. What should we do about Snape? He knows about Remus." 

"Do you think so?" 

I rolled my eyes and sighed quietly. "He may be the second biggest prick this school has ever seen, but he's also a smart prick. I saw what he did with that beaker. It wasn't accidental that it broke. Snape pushed it to the ground." Snorting, I added, "He might as well have just thrown it into Remus' face. If it didn't kill Remus --" 

"If it didn't kill Remus, it would have revealed him to be a werewolf to the class, anyway," James finished in a spill of words. "Oh, God..." 

"He's dead, James. Mark my words, Snape is dead."

James fell silent, and for a time we stared at the bed, where Remus slept in a drug-induced haze. The blood had long since been cleaned from his mouth, but the memory of those crimson drops cruelly shimmering at the corners of his lips made me shudder even now. Although under the influence of a powerful sleeping draught, he twitched in the midst of an inward agony that even the strongest of painkillers could never relieve. 

He looked as if he wouldn't make it through the night. 

I finally broke the silence, the tension, and the dark thoughts that engulfed us both. "Mandragorda root then? Whatever gave you the idea to transfigure the silver to that?" I paused for a moment and added, "For that matter, what _is_ mandragorda root, anyway?" 

"Don't you pay attention?" James chided lightly, although it was clear that his heart wasn't into joking. "It's powdered root used in fertility potions. It doesn't normally cause so severe a reaction unless someone's allergic to it. I -- couldn't think of anything else at the time." 

"Was Remus allergic?" 

"Probably not. It's extremely rare." James' eyes clouded over darkly, and he added, "But he is now." 

Behind us, someone cleared their throat, and James and I suddenly broke off and turned to face Madam Pomfrey, who had the curtain separating Remus' bed pulled aside. She gazed upon us sadly, displaying none of her usual strict, overbearing demeanor. 

"Okay, you two, visiting hours are over," she said quietly. 

"But, ma'am, visiting hours end at nine. It's only seven-thirty," James protested. 

"Visiting hours for Remus Lupin are over," said Madam Pomfrey. "Unfortunately, he must be quarantined for the next four to five days, even from you. I'm sorry, but it's beyond my control." 

"Will he be alright, ma'am?" asked James as he rose to his feet and spared a glance at the pale, shuddering figure of Remus huddled within starched, white sheets. 

"That poor boy," Madam Pomfrey whispered, as if she hadn't even heard James. "That poor, poor boy. As if he doesn't have enough to worry about." 

"Ma'am?" 

Madam Pomfrey blinked before suddenly snapping out of her melancholy with a shake of her head. "Come now, out with the two of you. Your friend needs to get as much rest as he can, if he's to pull through this." 

After James and I were reluctantly bustled from the medical ward by a clucking -- yet sympathetic -- Madam Pomfrey, we lingered outside the double doors. I shook with anger and fear, wanting to punch something, and I raked my hair from my eyes as I paced beside a still and shivering James, who leaned heavily against the wall. 

"'If he's to live through this,'" James whispered, his lip quivering perilously once again as he repeated Madam Pomfrey's words. "_If_."

"Keep it together, Jamie," I muttered, as much for my sake as his own. 

He looked at me, eyes wide behind his glasses, and nodded as I slung a brotherly arm about his shoulders. We spoke not a word as we walked together back to the Gryffindor common room, but we took quiet comfort in each other's mere presence. 

After uttering, "_Biscotto del cioccolato_," to the portrait of the Fat Lady, we slid wearily into the room only to be met with the flushed and fearful face of Peter Pettigrew. 

"There you are! Where were you guys?" he asked nervously, rushing towards us as we entered, a rumpled parchment clutched in his stubby fingers. 

"In the infirmary. Where were you?" I demanded.

"Fending off Snape, that's where! He's been going around to all the professors, to anyone that will listen, calling for a formal inquiry! He seems to think it's another prank against him... And I think he means business this time!" 

"Snape can go get stuffed," James muttered. "It's no different than any other time. At least, not now it isn't... Snape has cried wolf one too many times for the faculty to actually believe him." 

"Either way, MacGonagall was here, and she told me to tell you that Dumbledore wants to see the both of you in his office, immediately," babbled Peter, thrusting the wrinkled scroll into James' hand. "It -- sounded urgent." 

"Will this day never end?" I groaned, but James nodded resolutely, taking the parchment and smoothing out the wrinkles as he read it over. 

"I wasn't expecting an answer this quickly," he whispered. "Come on, Sirius. One more kilometer to go before we sleep." 

It was only the expression on James' face and in his sparkling green eyes -- chillingly decisive, as if he knew exactly what he was doing -- that kept me going on the trip to the office of the very headmaster of our school.

_~*~ _

The office of Professor Albus Dumbledore, Headmaster of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, was a heaven for the sensory addict -- filled with more gadgets and artifacts behind magically locked glass than one may ever have thought existed. There were Sneakoscopes, gazing crystals, brooms of various sizes... even a great, flame-feathered phoenix sitting upon a simple perch at the side of Professor Dumbledore's mahogany desk. 

At the center of it all was Professor Dumbledore himself, sitting upon a high-backed chair at his desk, his expression a mix of both calming reassurance to my jangled nerves, and also of grave seriousness. From behind the large mahogany desk, it was clear that he meant business. 

"Aah. James Potter and Sirius Black," he said with a tiny smile behind his long beard. "Do sit down, please. We've much to discuss." 

"Whatever Severus Snape may have told you, it's all a lie," I said quickly as I lowered my frame into one of the chairs situated before his desk. 

"No, boys, we're not here to discuss Severus Snape. This isn't a meeting to cast blame upon either side in the incident involving Remus Lupin," Professor Dumbledore said evenly. "As you have likely been told by now, Madam Pomfrey wants to keep Remus quarantined for the next several days. That means no friends, no family, no risk of any outside disturbances during the upcoming cycle." 

My eyes widened, and I suddenly understood the reason behind Madam Pomfrey's unexplained quarantine. "That's right! It's the full moon! Only a couple of days away..." Reaching across the space between us, James leaned over the edge of his chair and punched me hard in the shoulder. 

"I am going to pretend that I didn't hear that, Sirius," the headmaster replied, although with a very small smile. "Besides, there are other matters that I wish to address, such as why, in the middle of the dinner feast, a small owl landed in my soup with this purportedly urgent message." 

Professor Dumbledore passed across a parchment stained red from the clam chowder served at supper. Upon it was a hastily written scrawl, barely discernable as James' normally impeccable handwriting, requesting a meeting to discuss the recent deduction in points from House Gryffindor. 

Turning, I met James' coldly serious eyes, and I understood -- James was fighting fire with fire. If Snape could run about to those in authority, as we'd suspected he would, then we would simply go to an even higher authority. 

"Yes, sir, that was my owl," James said, squaring his shoulders and sitting up straighter in his chair as he looked to the headmaster. "Professor Adder deducted an inordinate amount of points from House Gryffindor, and gave myself and Sirius detention. I feel the punishment was excessive, sir, considering he took no steps to assist Remus." 

Professor Dumbledore furrowed his brow in thought, fingertips stroking his long beard. "Far be it from me to question a teacher's authority," he finally stated. "Professor Adder's detention and points deducted from Gryffindor stand." 

"What?" James gasped, his professional air dropping with the shock of Professor Dumbledore's announcement. "Won't you at least give us a chance to explain ourselves?" 

"No, James, I'm afraid my decision is final." 

I hung my head miserably, struggling unsuccessfully to contain the tears that suddenly welled up behind my eyes. It just wasn't fair! Remus nearly died at the hands of a cruel and jealous rival -- was still in critical danger -- and Severus Snape got off scot-free! James placed a hand upon my shoulder and squeezed hard, his fingertips shaking with the same raw anger and helplessness. 

"However, if it weren't for your selfless actions, then your friend might not be around today," Professor Dumbledore added with a glimmer of a chuckle in his voice. "I award Gryffindor twenty points for your swift feet and your bravery, Sirius Black. And another twenty for you, James Potter, whose cunning and companionship kept Remus Lupin calm even in the face of direst peril." 

"What was that?" I whispered, twin tears spilling down my cheeks as I jerked my head up to look at the headmaster. Swiftly, I scrubbed my hands against my cheeks and snuffled hard against the back of my fist. 

"It doesn't matter, anyway," James mumbled quietly, his gaze fixed straight to the floor. "Snape is still a hero to the Slytherins, and to Adder. And Remus may still not survive the night." 

"Is it true what Madam Pomfrey said?" I blurted suddenly on the heels of James' words. "That Remus might not live?" 

Professor Dumbledore sighed heavily, his normally twinkling eyes now grave, and oddly assessing as they surveyed me with diligence. "Unfortunately, Sirius, his allergy is quite severe. He will have to be watched very closely over the next several days. I will not lie to you by telling you everything will be okay, because it might not be so." 

"He can't die," James murmured numbly. "He just can't." 

"I make no promises," Professor Dumbledore continued. "But I dare say that between the two of you, and Peter Pettigrew, Remus has friends well worth fighting for. Something tells me that he will not expire without a fight." 

"Well, thank you, professor," said James, forcing a smile to his lips as he pushed himself to his feet in an altogether too swift movement. "I appreciate your time, truly." 

"If there is anything more that you need, either of you, don't hesitate to contact me. Although, may I suggest that you not use your owl again, James Potter? I'm afraid he took quite a liking to my soup, and I had been so looking forward to eating it myself." 

It was clearly the wrong thing to say. To the shock of both Professor Dumbledore and myself, James spun upon his heel and bolted from the headmaster's office. 

Professor Dumbledore let out a sigh, his gaze settling upon me, and he uttered, "Do go after him, Sirius." 

With a barely mumbled word of thanks to the headmaster, I followed quickly on James' heels. Slipping through the passageway, I finally managed to catch him just outside the door. Wrapping my fingers around his upper arm, I spun him quickly towards me as he struggled violently. 

"Sirius, let go! Just let go!" he cried. 

I tried not to break at the sight of the tears pouring down his cheeks. "Come on, Jamie! You did what you could!" I tried to loop my arms around him, to hold him, but he threw his hands up against my chest and shoved me roughly away. 

"Bloody lot of good it did, too! You heard Dumbledore -- there's nothing he can do. He can't bring Remus back to us!" 

"Don't talk as if he's already dead!" I exclaimed. "He'll make it through the night. He has to! Right now, all we can do is wait." 

James bit his lower lip and ran the back of his arm across his eyes. "I don't want to wait. I -- I just want to be alone, okay?" 

"Jamie --" 

"_Okay_, Sirius?" 

With a sigh, I nodded, turning my back to James so I wouldn't have to see him break further. So he wouldn't have to watch me. "Of course, man. Anything you want." 

"Sirius..." James hesitated a moment, before letting out a faint cry and taking off in the opposite direction down the hallway. 

There was nothing that I could do -- nothing to hold James together, nothing to turn back time and prevent Snape from breaking that beaker, or to keep Remus from even going to class in the first place. 

All I really could do, once back in the Gryffindor dormitories, was huddle fast within myself, wrap my arms around my knees, and stare out the castle window to the stars above. And the only thing that I could wish was that the steadily broadening face of the moon would be merciful this month.

I didn't cry myself to sleep, but instead took my aggression out upon my pillows, and with every strike and flurry of feathers, I imagined that it was Severus Snape's face I was pummeling into oblivion.

...tbc...


	3. Don't Go Away

"Revenge Most Sweet"  
by s1ncer1ty

* A/N: Phew! Yeah, I know it's been a while since I updated. Been a hectic couple of weeks. But, the muse has returned, and in full force. I've been forced to make this a four-parter, rather than three like I'd originally intended. 

Insert more angst than is recommended in your daily nutritional allowance, some snarky (but surprisingly complex) comments from Snape, and one Sirius growing steadily angrier here... 

_~ * 3: Don't Go Away* ~ _

_we've been sharing so many words and feelings   
age is heavier, it seems, than years alone   
but I told you things I wouldn't dream of telling anyone   
are we drifting out, like flowers from a forgotten someone _

_don't go away...   
i can't feel the same without you _

_~ Toad the Wet Sprocket _

Through the machinations of a cruel professor who would have liked nothing better than to see me expelled and James' absence from class (for which Gryffindor lost still more house points), I ended up paired with Severus Snape during the next day's practical Potions lesson. We had never gotten on well, but by that lesson we were looking upon each other with undisguised loathing. I still wanted nothing more than to punch him -- if only just once, to vent my frustration -- but I restrained myself in the presence of Adder. 

The potion that day was a caustic one, designed to melt away any traces of magical graffiti. Part of me suspected that Filch merely wanted more cleaning solution to scrub down the walls of the boys' bathroom, but another part of me couldn't help but wonder if Adder had deliberately set us up working with such volatile potions ingredients. 

But I said nothing, and merely bit my tongue as Snape snapped directions like a commanding officer over the day's potion. With Adder keeping a particularly close eye upon our workstation, I pulled stingers from venomous fireflies and squeezed acidic secretions from poison slugs. I even put up with Snape's snidely undercutting comments regarding my ability to brew a proper potion without giving in to the desire to break his oversized nose. 

I was good, but I was seething. Finally, I could take it no more, and dissolved the dutifully patient act. 

"How could you?" I whispered halfway through the potion's creation.

Inky black eyes, cold and unbetraying of his guilt, tilted up to meet my own. "I'm sorry?" 

But he wasn't sorry, the patronizing git. I suppressed the escalating urge to throw the beaker of acidic slug secretion in his face. "What you did to Remus." 

"There is no question of what _I_ did to Lupin," Snape hissed, eyes smouldering with fierce hatred, even if his voice remained level. "It is a question of what _you_ and _Potter_ did to _me_." 

"What we did to you?" I muttered incredulously. "After you deliberately knocked over that --" 

"Not in the slightest!" interrupted Snape. "Must I remind you that it was you and Potter that conspired to soil my reputation? You know as well as I that there was no mandragorda in that beaker." 

"Can I help it if you're blind?" I said, avoiding his gaze. "Or perhaps you're not quite the star potions maker that you proclaim yourself to be." 

"That beaker was filled with silver dust, Black," Snape said smoothly, adding several lacewing flies to the potion bubbling in a thick mass before us. "How odd, indeed, that Lupin reacts so violently to silver dust." 

That did it. With a sharp cry, I yanked my wand from my robe and drew my arm back as if to strike him. Yet before the vilest of hexes burst forth from my lips, my hand was roughly seized, thick fingers circling my wrist. 

"You will put your wand away in my class, Mr. Black," said Adder, squeezing my wrist so tightly I could feel the bones grinding together. Helplessly, my wand dropped from my fingertips and hit the table. 

"Let me go," I whispered, hoping to disguise at least a little of the venom in my voice. 

Adder dropped my arm with a jerk, and I rubbed at the aching flesh with my opposite hand. "Ten points from Gryffindor for your lack of discipline, Mr. Black. One more outburst from you, and I will see that you are suspended, if not expelled. Get back to work." 

I buried my hands into the long sleeves of my robes, so that neither Snape nor Adder could see the trembling in my fingers as I rubbed feeling back into the tips. I flushed angrily, and less than gently threw several firefly stingers into the potion. 

Finally, Snape spoke again, his voice soft and, surprisingly, almost concerned in tone. "Remus Lupin is not to be trusted, Black. He's dangerous. I thought you had that figured out by now." 

"You know nothing, Snape. Absolutely nothing," I snapped, and if it weren't for the looming figure of Adder hovering at a nearby workstation, I might well have hexed him on the spot, expulsion be damned. 

"Apparently, you are not to be trusted either," he said, his voice dropping back to its usual honeyed sneer. "I do suggest you be careful of who you choose as your friends. Or else you may find yourself aligned with those who engage in ... less than acceptable wizarding practices." 

"So help me, if he dies because of you, I'll --" 

"You'll _what_?" 

But I left the threat ultimately unspoken, bottling the rage inside me just long enough to cut off any potential fodder that Snape could use against me in the future. I would not show him my full hand, and would not give in, even though it took my entire force of will...

~*~ 

Five days we waited from the time the full moon rose to its deepest ebb, and Remus Lupin would again be safe to return to the school. I thought I would go sick with worry -- not just for Remus, but also for James, who had distanced himself from us all since the incident. 

Despite repeated attempts to visit the Hospital Wing, Madam Pomfrey rebuffed us at every turn, without giving us so much as an inkling as to whether or not Remus was even alive. 

"Please, Madam Pomfrey," I grouchily implored after the moon had begun its wane. "Just let us know if he's okay. Hell, let us know if he's dying. It's been five days -- I think we have a right to know." 

"Sirius Black," she had snapped in reply, her stern demeanor returned in full force since the initial shock of the incident. "I want you back in your common room immediately, and I don't want to see you here again unless you are sick yourself! And the same goes for James Potter and Peter Pettigrew, if you would be so kind as to pass on the message." 

"But Remus --" 

"Is still under strict quarantine. Good day, Sirius." 

I left dejectedly that day, and joined Peter at supper that evening where I picked at my food, while he stared firmly at his plate and ate without second thought. James didn't bother joining us to eat, but later that night I stayed awake in the dormitory to listen to his whimpering, his thrashing about upon the bed in the throes of agonized nightmares. I wanted to go to him, to wake him up or to place a hand on his shoulder, but I knew he wouldn't want comfort. Not from me, at any rate. 

On the fifth day since the incident in Potions class, I dragged myself back to the Gryffindor common room after an achingly long day of blurred, bleary classes -- I'd nearly passed out from boredom in another of Professor Binns' dissertations on the Goblin rebellions; had nearly impaled myself upon my transfigured hedgehog in Professor McGonagall's class; and had worked very hard to keep from detonating Snape's cauldron in Potions. 

As I entered the Gryffindor common room all went silent. Since Remus' incident, it had been infinitely more subdued than usual, but when I pushed through the secret passageway that day, the silence that greeted me was almost deafening. It took me several moments to realize that the whole of the Gryffindor common room -- from the wide-eyed first-years to the solemn seventh-years -- was staring at me. 

Lily Evans was the first to speak, standing from her chair and swiftly crossing the room to place a hand on my arm. "Sirius, you need to see --" 

"Remus?" I murmured past numb lips. 

A faint twinge of a smile at first reassured me, until I saw the tears beginning to spill down her cheeks, and she turned from me with a quiet sob breaking from her throat. My heart froze -- I didn't know whether to hug her or to shout at her. Before I could make that decision, a voice from the top of the stairs leading to the boys' dormitories broke through my thoughts. 

"Sirius!" A pale-faced Peter stood at the landing, his eyes so wide they nearly bulged out of his head. "Sirius, come quick!" Without bothering to wait up for me, he clambered up the top several stairs two at a time and disappeared around the corner. 

I didn't give a second glance to Lily. My books fell into a heap upon the floor, my parchment scattering across the common room, but I didn't care. I tore up the stairs fast on Peter's heels and burst into the dormitory, where Peter stood like a stunned, shivering ghost beside Remus' bed. Another figure, silhouetted behind the gauzy curtains surrounding the bed could be glimpsed, sitting at the bedside with his head in his hands. _James_. My breath turned to glass within my throat. 

"He -- he was asking for you, before --" Peter whispered, rubbing at the back of his pale neck with a hand as his eyes darted towards the floor. 

_Remus... No... _

I wanted to run, run far from this dormitory, far from Hogwarts. I wanted to scream at the night's sky and rail at the moon, believing with all my heart that her once-full face had cruelly stolen Remus from us. But my legs moved mechanically, drawing me steadily closer to my friend's bedside, where, irrational a thought as it was, I was absolutely certain that he would be laid out, cold and unbreathing. 

As I drew back the thin curtains, the first thing I saw was James, seated at Remus' bedside, his nearly grey face buried fast in his hands. Yet as he heard me approach and looked up, I could see that he was smiling. Reluctantly, my heart pounding fast in my chest, I tore my gaze from his and turned towards the bed, where Remus lay sitting propped up against a pile of pillows, pale-faced, with deep rings beneath his eyes and even more strands of grey mingling with his sandy brown hair. 

He was awake. He was breathing. He was _alive_. 

"Good evening, Sirius," Remus Lupin said, his voice no more than a deathly hoarse whisper. 

I felt my knees give way, and I wrapped my fingertips around the headboard before slithering to the ground. Kneeling at his bedside, I stared for several moments into his weakly smiling face before forcing a pained grin of my own and whispering, "Hey. How are you feeling?" 

Remus' shoulder lifted almost imperceptibly. "I'll admit, I've felt better..." 

"Did you make it through okay? The past few nights, I mean..." 

"I don't want to talk about that right now, if it's all the same to you," Remus murmured, grey eyes tilting momentarily away from me. It had been a hard, hard transformation this month -- that much was apparent from the haunted expression on his face, the deep rings beneath his eyes and the delicate care of his movements, as if merely breathing was an agony unto itself. 

"Listen," James interjected, "what did Madam Pomfrey have to say? You're going to be alright, aren't you?" 

"I'm not going to die anytime soon, if that's what you're worried about," Remus said in that harsh whisper. "Madam Pomfrey managed to stop the -- the bleeding..." He trailed off, swallowing as he watched James and I wince. 

"Is there still, you know, that poison still inside you?" Peter quietly piped up from the corner of the bed, where he'd kept his distance from the three of us the entire time. 

Remus shook his head gravely. "Madam Pomfrey gave me a purging potion in the infirmary. She says whatever hasn't left my body after that probably will be there forever." 

"You poor sot," I said, sympathetic, yet in a breathlessly joking voice, as if that alone would provide enough distraction from our melancholy. "They gave me a purging potion once as a kid after I'd eaten an orange venomous snail, thinking it was a candy. You know the phrase 'going out both ends?' No joke, I didn't leave the loo for three days!" 

"Stuff it, Sirius!" James suddenly exclaimed, wrinkling his nose. Remus gingerly reached around to hand him one of the pillows scattered about his bed, and James gave me a sound thwack up side the head. 

"Ow! It's true!" I protested, throwing my hands up to wield off a second strike. 

In a brief round of laughter among us all, the tension dissolved, until Remus suddenly jerked forward, his hands again tugging at the collar of his sleeping robes. His laughter gave way to a choking, almost gurgling cough, which he struggled fiercely to contain.

"Jesus, Remy," James said, immediately on his feet and rubbing his hand in a wide circle across Remus' back. "Take it easy there." 

"I'm fine -- _fine_," Remus managed to gasp. When he finally sat up again, the collar to his robes was torn, and his short, human fingernails had drawn thin, bloodless scratches down his chest. 

"Of course you are," said James quickly. "It's too soon after the full moon for you to feel perfectly well, anyway. Take it easy." 

Remus fell back against the pillows with an exasperated sigh, eyes fluttering closed in a barely perceptible wince. "I should have just walked out of class," he whispered. "I think I'd rather have been expelled." 

"You can't change things now," Peter said suddenly, and he twisted his fingertips within the sleeves of his robes as we turned to stare at him. "There's a lot that all of us could have done, but we didn't. We didn't _know_. There's no sense dwelling on what might have happened if we'd done things differently, because we _didn't_."

James swallowed and, with a reluctant expression in his eyes, nodded in accordance. Remus and I merely continued to stare, unable to find the proper words to form a response. 

"Who knows, we might even have made the situation worse," Peter whispered, miserably. 

"I guess for now, all we can do is look forward," I finally murmured. 

"That's right," interjected James, his tone quite hasty, even a little dismissive. "Remus, you'll be on your feet before you know it, and we'll be back to ourselves in no time." 

Remus nodded, a ghost of a smile flittering across his pallid face, and his light lashes closed over grey eyes as he slumped back beneath the covers. "I do hope you're right." 

"Right as rain," James said, forcing a strained grin of his own. "Come on, we should let you sleep." 

I dragged myself to my feet, clutching fast to the bedpost as my knees protested angrily. Without thinking, I tugged the blankets atop Remus' chest. "We'll be here if you need anything, okay Remy?" 

Once again, Remus nodded, and turned his head before weakly coughing twice. We whispered our goodnights, lingering at his bedside as his chest hitched with shallow breath, his forehead lined with pain and dark memory. 

Peter slipped away first, the back of his neck still flushed, and he crawled upon the edge of the window overlooking the Hogwarts grounds, where the waning face of the moon was hidden behind gathering clouds. Meanwhile, James and I stood side by side for some moments, gazing at each other in mute confusion -- and overwhelming sadness -- until I finally broke the silence. 

"James, how are you --" 

"I'd rather not talk right now, Sirius, if that's quite alright with you." Icould see the muscles in his face tensing as he stared back at me. 

"Are you angry with us?" 

James shifted uncomfortably on his feet, hands stuffed deep into the pockets of his robes. "No, I'm not. I just need to think." 

"Don't fall apart on us, Jamie," I said to him once again. 

A mirthless smile spread across his lips. "It would be nice if I could, though, wouldn't it? I am a bit tired of having to be the strong one here." 

"Jamie --" 

"No, Sirius. I'm not having this conversation now. If you'll excuse me." 

He turned, and disappeared behind the curtains to his four-poster bed, shutting them securely against the world. Even though it was early, I stayed upstairs, huddled behind the curtains of my bed, listening with a feeling akin to despair as Remus muffled his coughs against a pillow. And, within the seclusion of his own design, I was certain that James was doing the exact same thing, hiding his hurt and his fears from the rest of us when, really, we should have been together, trying to muddle our way through the sharp turn our lives had taken in the briefest of seconds, upon the shattering of a single glass. 

~*~ 

Ultimately, Remus did recover, and a lot quicker than any of us had thought imaginable. He was bedridden only one more day, during which time the remainder of Gryffindor welcomed him back with open arms, overwhelming concern, and very likely the entire stock of chocolate from Honeyduke's. Soon -- perhaps too soon -- he was again on his way to class and struggling to catch up on the work he'd missed during his absence. 

But the silver had clearly left its mark -- Remus often found himself winded simply by walking to class, and a jaunt up even a single flight of stairs would catch him in the throes of a coughing fit. After I dragged him back to the hospital wing after a particularly breathless spate that left him almost blue in the lips, Madam Pomfrey prescribed him inhaled potions to help clear his lungs and forbade him from even simple physical education. Remus, not much of an athletic boy to begin with, accepted this decree without complaint, and sat gladly on the sidelines with a book while the rest of us suffered through mandatory physical education, practice Quiddich runs against a particularly sorry lot of Hufflepuffs. 

Of course, none of us slept really well for some weeks after the incident. After Remus left Madam Pomfrey's care, he could be heard throughout the nights struggling to muffle a chronic, wheezing, almost unrelenting cough against his pillows -- the aftereffects of the silver, long after it had been purged from his system. When he did manage to sleep, it was fitful, often broken by long periods when no noise whatsoever could be heard from him, before the silence would shatter with a sudden, breathless gasp. Most mornings, he would awaken looking harrowed and even worse than if he hadn't rested. 

James, as well, slept terribly, his nights plagued by incessant nightmares. He, too, would thrash about in his sleep, kicking aside sheets and blankets, until he awoke -- often gasping, sometimes crying aloud. He never spoke of his nightmares, but just by the way he watched Remus cough uncontrollably every time he ascended a set of stairs, the way he lingered at the boy's bedside before lights-out, it was safe to assume that they somehow involved Remus. But he allowed none of us to get near him for comfort, or even for a reassuring word. He held simply too much pride to let on exactly how much the incident had truly shaken him. 

Even Peter, who had been a mere observer at the time of the incident, was affected, although in quite the opposite way -- he coped with the horrible memories by retreating into a deep, narcoleptic sleep. Quite often, he would nap through classes, through mealtimes and breaks, so much that I began to grow concerned about his health as well. 

My own nights grew interminably long, and I became afraid to drift off. There were some evenings when I'd stay awake just to make sure that Remus awoke the next morning. Other times, I would sit at James' bedside and try to shake him out of the desperately terrifying dreams that haunted him each night. 

At the break of day, I'd try to ignore James' twisting whimpers as he fought his way out of a twisted nest of blankets, or Remus' furtive attempts to strip and hide the blood-stained pillowcases from us all. 

One night, maybe two weeks after Remus' incident, I awoke in the dead of night from an all-too-brief bout of painfully light sleep as someone shook my shoulder. Muttering something unintelligible, I turned and cracked open an eye to see Remus kneeling at my bedside. Beneath the light of a half moon filtering through the castle windows, his skin glowed all the more pale, his eyes wide and fearful. 

"Sirius, I'm sorry," he whispered. "I can't wake Jamie. He's in a bad way... Worse than usual. You have to help." 

I rubbed my eyes with the heel of my hand as I sat up and pulled aside the covers mechanically. As my feet touched the frigid stone floor, I began to feel almost immediately more lucid, and I looked towards James' bed, where he could already be heard twisting and whimpering in the throes of dark dreams. 

I pushed aside the curtains and crouched beside the four-poster bed, while Remus stood, pale as a wraith, at the foot. Gingerly, I reached out to wrap my fingers around James' squirming arm, and he whimpered and recoiled from the touch. His forehead was beaded with sweat, his jaw clenched. 

"James? Come on, Jamie-kins. Time to wake up," I said, grasping his shoulder more firmly and shaking. 

With a cry, James lashed blindly out with a hand, and pain exploded in my cheek before I could dart out of the way. Cursing beneath my breath, I pushed myself onto his bed and wrapped both hands around his flailing arms. 

"You're dreaming, Jamie," I said, leaning my face above his. "You need to wake up -- you're frightening us here." 

Another cry escaped him, this one louder, and I might have physically struck him from his dreams if his own wails hadn't woken him first. His eyes fluttered open, his breath caught in a convulsive gasp, and I eased off him as, shaking, he returned to consciousness. 

"I was dreaming," James whispered, chest heaving with terrified, stunted breath. "I -- Sirius?" 

"Yeah, that you were," I said. "Must have been one hell of a dream there." 

James looked around, fearful eyes narrowing as he squinted through the darkness at myself, the pale form of Remus standing at the foot of his bed. "Remus?" 

"I'm here, Jamie," he whispered. 

Relief spread across James' features, and he raked hand roughly through his hair. "I thought -- I thought you might have been dead," he admitted softly, sheepishly. 

"Why don't you tell us about what you were dreaming, eh Potter?" I asked, forcing a grin to my lips as I settled upon the edge of his bed. 

James turned his head, arms looping tightly around his knees as he drew well within himself once again. I gave his shoulder a light smack. 

"Spill it. You've been a stranger to us for weeks. I won't stand for it any longer." I gripped James' shoulder and gave it a squeeze.

"I --" Again, James' nearsighted eyes settled upon Remus, and he flushed as he ducked his head and stared hard at the twisted blankets. "Every night it's the same thing. I keep seeing that beaker breaking. I keep seeing Severus laughing, and Remus falling backwards trying to breathe. But I can't move, can't get to him fast enough, and by the time I catch him, it's too late. I can't save him from -- from --" 

"From the poison," Remus finished, fingers touching his throat in remembrance. 

"From the silver," James whispered in a barely audible voice. 

Remus shuddered. 

"Why did he do it? I mean, this goes above and beyond anything -- anything -- he's ever done to us before. Not even we've stooped so low as to try to kill another student we didn't like," James murmured. 

I placed my arm around James, and he twisted his face against my shoulder. 

"I'm sorry," Remus whispered, his face paler than ever, wide grey eyes threatening to overflow. "If it weren't for me, none of this would have happened." 

"Stop blaming yourself, Remy," I said sternly. "This isn't your fault. Far from your fault." 

"I can't think of anyone else to blame," he murmured, hastily turning from us and pushing aside the curtains surrounding James' bed. "Excuse me..."

I sighed, but ultimately let him go. James was the one who needed me now; Remus would only push me away if I were to follow after him. Removing my arm from around his shoulders, I shifted awkwardly to the edge of James' bed, and he reached across to pick up his glasses from the bedside table. 

"Would you like to play some chess?" I finally ventured. 

"Chess? No, I don't think so," he murmured with a shake of his head. 

"Come now, it'll take your mind off everything." 

"Probably not." 

"You and I both know that neither of us is going to sleep now. We should at least do something constructive."

James looked at me, blinking owlishly behind his thick glasses."Perhaps... Just one game." "I might even let you win this time, Potter," I said with a wink. 

James started to smile, knowing my penchant for bragging when it came to chess. But the grin was interrupted by the sound from the other side of the room, as Remus Lupin again muffled a wheezing cough against his pillows. The lines in James' forehead deepened in concern, and he brought out his chessboard with a sober expression, one that didn't change even as he proceeded to wipe the board with me in a surprisingly devastating loss. And I didn't even let him win this time around. 

Like the pieces in a traditional game of wizard's chess, we were falling to bits -- James through his wracking nightmares, Remus through his own bitter self-blame, Peter through his narcoleptic means of sleeping through his problems, and me... desperately trying to hold us together. Desperately trying not to snap. Something had to be done -- and done fast -- before McGonagall's "mad marauders" collapsed into ruin... 

...tbc... 


	4. A Game of Chess

"Revenge Most Sweet"  
by s1ncer1ty

* A/N: Whoo! Many apologies for taking over a month to put up the last chapter of this behemoth! I managed to get buried in a fury of work, with an August vacation tossed into the middle... But I finally got my muses back in gear long enough to finish this puppy. No, I don't think I'll be doing a sequel... I tend not to be very good at sequels, and so I'd like to leave this as it is. Hope it's been sufficiently concluded! 

Included in this final installment: angst, meanie!Sirius, and Peter finally speaks his mind! o.o

_~* 4: A Game of Chess * ~_

_"Good night, don't fear,   
I always will watch over you, my dear.   
Good night, sleep well,   
I'll see you with the rest of them in hell. _

_And so, for now, farewell..." _

_~~ Toad the Wet Sprocket _

Paradoxically, it was Remus Lupin who kept me from pummeling Severus Snape into oblivion, yet at the same time gave me the very idea to take the arrogant, smirking Slytherin out of commission for good. 

James and I had been discussing our plan of attack one night over a late-night game of chess in the Gryffindor common room. His nightmares hadn't ended completely, but as he steadily came to terms with the incident that had nearly taken Remus' life, they had started to fade to the background somewhat. And as the dreams abated, he gradually fell back into all our lives, unable to stay distanced from his closest friends forever. Yet James was still something of a night owl, putting off going to bed until exhaustion overcame him completely. Some nights, with the ghosts of the past still fresh and wailing in my mind, I was more than happy to keep James company. And it was a prime opportunity to plot our revenge against Snape without fear of being overheard. 

That particular evening, James and I had been arguing over whether it would be better to hex Snape with a particularly painful _furnunculus_ spell or to just outright pound him with our fists, when a light cough and a shuffling of footsteps down the dormitory staircase brought our conversation to a sudden halt. Rubbing at his eyes, Remus descended the stairs, and as he spotted us immediately made his way to our table. 

James leaned back in his chair and lifted a hand in greeting to Remus, while I quietly fumed over the chessboard, where a simple mistake had placed me at an undue disadvantage early on. "Couldn't sleep either, could you?" 

"I got up for a drink and heard your voices downstairs as I was heading back to bed. Whose turn is it?" Remus asked as he slid with deliberate slowness into a chair beside us. He'd been doing a lot of sitting since returning from his monthly transformation -- something in his joints, particularly in his knees, hadn't completely resettled properly. And, although the chronic, painful-sounding cough had begun to ease in recent days, he was still easily winded by even the simplest walk across the courtyard despite the inhaled restoratives given to him by Madam Pomfrey. 

"It's Sirius' turn," James replied with a smirk. "And he's about to get seriously whomped." 

I frowned, both at the bad pun and the even worse state of my chess game. Normally, I could beat James blindfolded, but the anger that continued to fester within me -- made all the more exacting as James and I plotted our revenge against Snape -- had distracted me, and not three moves into the game I was already on the defensive. 

"May I?" said Remus, an impish grin playing upon his lips. 

I shrugged with a noncommittal grunt, and Remus took up a squirming bishop, placing it well away from James' inevitable attack in a move that, even if I had been at my best, would have been difficult to spot. That was Remus' specialty, and also his greatest weakness at chess -- the difficult moves were always painfully apparent to him, while the simplest of strategies often escaped him completely. 

"You... wanker!" James sputtered. "That's cheating! You can't do that!" 

"You let Remus help you all the time," I said, chuckling to myself. "Fair is fair." 

"You don't seem to need Remus' help, though!" 

"Can I help it if you're just a basket case when it comes to chess?" 

"Bloody prats, both of you," James murmured, pushing his thick glasses up the bridge of his nose as he stared hard at the chessboard. 

"I hope I didn't interrupt anything important," said Remus, settling back in his chair with a tiny sigh. "You looked like you were deep in conversation." 

"Just deep in scheming what we're going to do to that bastard Snape," James said, more than a little bitterly, picking a knight into his hand and moving it across the board, where it felled one of my pawns in a decidedly brutal swoop. "I suggested hexing him until he runs home crying to his 'Mummy.' Sirius here just wants to lay into him." 

"Hmph," I grumbled as I half-contemplated my next move. "It's too bad none of us know the _cruciatus_ curse. Illegal or not, I wouldn't hesitate to use it on that slimy git." 

"You'd do no such thing!" Remus suddenly exclaimed, looking quickly between James and me with an expression of horror on his face. "I -- don't want you to do anything to him. Not over this." 

"Remus, you can't be serious," I said, blinking. "After what he tried to do to you --" 

"It was an accident," he murmured.

James shook his head quickly. "No, Remus. That was no accident. We all know it wasn't. Don't delude yourself that it was." 

"I -- I'm not deluding myself. I _know_ it wasn't an accident," Remus said, his cheeks beginning to color in a mix of frustration and embarrassment. "I know it wasn't, you two know it wasn't, maybe even Peter knows it. But the rest of the school doesn't have to." 

"Come on, Remus, don't tell me that you don't think tall, dark, and greasy doesn't deserve what's coming to him!" I said with a frown. 

"Whether or not he deserves it is irrelevant," said Remus quietly. "If you go after him, it will only make things look more suspicious. Like what happened wasn't an accident. As long as everyone still thinks that it wasn't done deliberately, then... then we're safe." 

"I can't believe I'm hearing this..." I began, but James silenced my anger with a wave of his hand. 

"No, he has a point. Why draw attention to ourselves?" said James. 

"We do that anyway," I groused, fingers poking at a pawn that poked back. 

"Sirius, we can't do anything that might put Remus at risk of discovery for what he is. What happened with Snape was close enough. You said it yourself -- he already knows more than he should." 

Remus colored at James' words, but held firm. "Please, promise me you won't go after Severus to try to hurt him." 

"Remus, no --" I protested, my cheeks reddening with pent up anger. 

"_Promise me_." There was an oddly chilly tone to Remus' voice, and I knew that he was dead serious. I bit my lip. 

"I -- I promise, Remus. But don't you dare expect me to like it." 

"I wasn't asking you to," he snapped, glaring at me for a moment more before the steely expression in his eyes faded to a soft smile, and he was once again our quietly gentle, subtly intelligent Remus Lupin. Our tame werewolf, our best friend. "Thank you, Sirius." 

I tried to ignore the hard gaze of James upon me as I contemplated my next move. Yet despite the assessing glare and the intrusive squeaks of a nearby pawn eager to do battle, my heart was no longer into the game. It had moved far beyond a mere game of chess -- it was now our lives and our sanity at stake. 

_An accident_. It had to be an accident. And Remus had only made me promise that _I_ wouldn't go after Snape... 

The pieces had to fall just right. It was only a matter of how, and when. Until then, there would be no completion.

~*~ 

Professor Dumbledore had excused Remus from potions class for the remainder of the term, much to the chagrin of Adder, and permitted him a session of independent study in its place. With Remus now absent, Adder took his frustrations out upon myself in particular and, to a lesser degree, my "cohorts" James and Peter. Each class only managed to lose more points from Gryffindor, as Adder seemed to delight in seeing just how far he could push me before I would break. 

"You call that an infusion, Mr. Black?" he sneered at me one day, hovering fast over my shoulder, where my shrinking potion bubbled within its cauldron. "It looks like nothing more than the gruel they serve in the House Elves' quarters." 

"Only gruel, eh?" I muttered through clenched teeth and a saccharine smile. "I'd been going for porridge. I suppose I'll have to work harder." 

Adder smiled coldly, marked down a sufficient number of demerits onto a parchment, and again paired me with Severus Snape -- the one student who could be counted upon to give any purportedly 'inferior' potions student the hardest time. This time, it was permanent. I was to be stuck with Snape for the remainder of the year. While certainly less than ideal when it came to class performance, it was a situation I knew immediately could be turned to my advantage. 

Oh, I'd thought about my revenge for the longest time. I'd schemed, backtracked, and resolved for weeks that Snape would get what was coming to him, regardless of the promise I'd made to Remus. After all, he had only asked that I not go after the Slytherin greaseball directly. 

I told no one of my machinations, not even James -- not when there was the chance that one of them could try to talk me out of it, or might restrain me from exacting my revenge. It would truly be an accident, just as much as Snape's own attack upon us had been an "accident." He would not get away with hurting Remus, nor for giving James the nightmares that still wracked nearly every night of his sleep, nor for nearly shattering our group of friends. 

And as the final parts of my plan sprung to life within my mind, I waited with an almost overwhelming impatience to set the workings into motion. The second full moon after Remus' near-demise could not come soon enough -- and it was during another hideous double session of Potions with House Slytherin that it finally arrived, bringing with it my one chance of the month to exact sweet revenge upon Severus Snape. 

My heart was pounding in my chest with combined fear and malicious anticipation as I prepared the ingredients of our potion and handed them one at a time to Snape, who, blissfully unaware, dropped them into a simmering cauldron. 

"You're curious about Remus Lupin, are you?" I whispered across our workstation, where I was ignoring the sharp cries of a Kleffa root as I chopped the sentient carrot-like plant into small bits. 

Snape tilted his inky, half-lidded black eyes towards me. "What does it matter to you?" he hissed. 

"It matters plenty," I said as I passed him several neatly chopped pieces of still-whimpering Kleffa root. 

"You certainly seem to think you know enough about him. If you ask me, you don't know quite enough." 

"If you ask me, Black, it's none of your concern." 

"Oh, it's my concern, alright," I murmured easily. "I guess you think you have the answer, what with your dropping that beaker of silver dust last month. Convenient, wasn't it?" 

Snape didn't answer, only snatched away the large wooden spoon and began scraping the thick film forming at the edge of the cauldron. The whole time, his black, assessing eyes never left my face. 

"If it means so much to you to know Remus' deep, dark secret..." I whispered, leaning forward conspiratorially, speaking above the rapid fluttering of my heart. "Tonight as the sun is going down, head to the Whomping Willow. Keep out of sight... You'll see Madam Pomfrey escorting Remus there. When the coast is clear, go to the Willow and touch the knot with a stick -- that will freeze the tree. Then, follow the passageway beneath its roots." 

"And from there...?" 

"There, you'll find what you're looking for. Though I must warn you -- this knowledge has a price. I hope you're willing to pay." 

"Tell me, Black, why should I believe you?" Snape hissed, staring at me coldly. 

"I suppose you have no reason to," I returned smoothly and tossed some more bits of Kleffa root into the potion, watching as it fizzed to the edges of the cauldron. "But, if you don't want to put your curiosity to rest..." 

"Shut up, Black. And stop adding so much Kleffa. I refuse to have this potion detonate over me because of _your_ incompetence." 

We didn't speak for the remainder of the class, save for the simplest of directions to work our way through another tortuous potions class. But I knew he would go -- there was no way he wouldn't go, if only to satisfy his overwhelming curiosity. And when he saw Madam Pomfrey leading Remus to his monthly safehouse, he would be sure to follow inside. 

No evidence. No guilt. Snape was as good as gone. He'd taken the bait. And soon he'd be the one caught in his own 'accidental' trap. 

~*~ 

At the end of classes and after supper, I followed on silent feet after Snape, keeping far enough behind as he dashed through the teeming hallways and out one of the side doors. Cracking the door ever so slightly, I watched as the wicked Slytherin darted across the field leading towards the Quiddich pitch towards the Forbidden Forest -- where soon Madam Pomfrey would be escorting Remus to a wrenching transformation within the heart of the Whomping Willow. 

I couldn't help but smile to myself as I crept back inside and returned to the Gryffindor common room, where everyone -- save Remus -- was recovering from a harrowing day of classes and hard work. James was fine-tuning his broomstick in preparation for this weekend's Quiddich match; Peter was furrowed deep into a losing game of chess with a smirking Mundungus Fletcher; and I was beside myself with malicious amusement. Despite my resolve not to speak a word of this to anyone, I couldn't help myself -- in my overwhelming pride of what I'd accomplished, I simply _had_ to tell someone of my victory. 

"I just want you to know, Mr. Potter," I announced as fell into the soft chair beside James, "I have officially done my bad deed for the day!" 

"Have you now?" James asked, not bothering to look up as he tinkered with the broomstick in his lap. His lips quirked into a slight grin. "Spill it, then." 

"I caught slimy, dark, and hook-nosed in Potions today. I told him exactly where he can go," I said, leaning forward with a wicked grin. 

"That's not officially a bad deed, you know, Sirius," said James offhandedly. "We tell Snape to go to hell literally every day." 

"No, I didn't tell him off. Not this time around." Lowering my voice, I whispered to James conspiratorially, "I told him about the secret passageway at the Whomping Willow. I told him to follow Remus there tonight. Can you believe it? The sucker fell for it." 

Suddenly, James snapped his head up, eyes wide behind his horn-rimmed glasses. "Sirius, you did _what_?" he whispered. 

"It serves him right, after what he did to Remus. Snape has had this coming for over a month now." 

"But tonight is the full moon! Remus isn't safe to be around tonight!" James continued in a horrified whisper. "Snape could be killed!" 

"So what if he is, then?" I snapped. "After what he did--" 

"You can't just let him go to his death! What about your promise? Remus could be found out!" 

"For pity's sake, James, Snape tried to _kill_ Remus!" My voice resounded desperately through the common room. As various heads popped up from whatever they'd been doing to stare at me, I dropped my tone once again and whispered to James, "It will be an accident. A complete and total accident." 

With a shake of his head, James leapt to his feet and leaned forward, hissing in my face, "If he dies, Sirius Black, his blood will be on your hands." 

"Then so be it." I uttered, glaring up at James in slow, smouldering anger. "I'm merely watching out for one of our own." 

"I don't believe you. I just don't..." Without another word, he turned upon his heels, robes spinning in a great, black arc behind him, and James bolted towards the exit. 

I didn't understand -- why would James, of all people, want to look after Snape's well-being? Especially after nearly killing a fellow Marauder... _The git was getting what was coming to him!_ Well, James would be on his own if he were that intent upon saving the day. With a low growl, I pushed myself from my chair and started up staircase to the dormitory, ignoring the muted stares from my fellow classmates. 

The dormitory and its rows of four-poster beds were empty, and I threw my schoolbooks angrily to my bed. I was preparing to throw on my cloak, to get far, far from the likes of anyone, when a soft voice behind me stopped me dead in my tracks. 

"Sirius, don't you ever stop to _think_?" Spinning on my heel, I beheld short, pudgy Peter Pettigrew staring at me with wide, yet hesitant, eyes. Peter, whom we'd cast into the background of our group in the wake of Remus' and James' suffering, was now the first to speak up after overhearing the heated argument between myself and James. 

"_What_?" I demanded, lacing my arms across my chest. Peter never disputed me, and his words only brought my anger closer to the surface. 

"It's just --" he stammered at first, before uttering in a breathless rush, "Did you ever stop to think about Remus?" 

"What about Remus?" I snap, and Peter flinched away from my slow-burning anger. "What I mean to say is --" he stammered beneath my stony glare. "Did you ever stop to wonder what Remus is going to feel? When he awakens tomorrow and finds Snape dead by his own hand?" 

"Huh?" I blinked, for the moment only understanding Peter's statements on a base level. I didn't want to think about them. Yet I couldn't stop the disturbing thought from flitting across my mind -- what _would_ Remus think when he awoke the next morning? 

"And what do you think is going to happen to Remus, once it's discovered that he did kill someone?" Peter swiftly continued, taking fast advantage of my stunned silence. "He won't be allowed to remain at Hogwarts, you know." 

"Do you believe Professor Dumbledore would fault Remus?" I said in a suspicious murmur. "If it were Snape's overwhelming curiosity that led him there -- if it were an accident --" 

"But it was _you_ who led him there," Peter added. "And it certainly wouldn't be an accident. It would have to be covered up. Dumbledore wouldn't let something like a student's murder go public. Otherwise, the school would never see the end of angry owls and Howlers from panicked parents." 

"No," I muttered with a swift, denying shake of my head. It wouldn't dawn upon me. It couldn't. I wouldn't let it spoil what should have been my shining moment of revenge... "No, Peter. It wouldn't be like that. It couldn't be considered murder, could it?" 

He went on as if he hadn't even heard me speak. "But really, Sirius, it isn't the aftermath that really worries me. It's what something like this would do to Remus. I don't know about you, but I think it would just kill him." 

"I only wanted revenge against Snape, for what he did to Remus, and to James, even to you," I whispered tremulously. 

"You got your revenge, but you got it at Remus' expense," Peter added, his eyes narrowing as he began to realize the brevity of his own words. "And, Sirius, I think that is... is..." 

"Unforgivable," I finished for him. Oh, God... I understand. In my rage against Snape, I hadn't bothered to imagine what Remus' reaction might be when he awoke and discovered that he'd killed another student while under the wiles of an uncontrollable dementia brought on by the full moon. I'd twisted a simple request of his for mercy, for the ability to keep his lycanthropy from becoming a widespread secret, and warped it to my own advantage. I'd deluded myself into thinking that by hurting Snape, I would end our own wave of hurting, and didn't stop to think of the consequences that might arise for the one whose suffering I was trying the hardest to alleviate.

"Come on. We need to go and help Jamie. And _you_ need to stop whatever it is you set in motion." 

"I think you're right," I murmured, before dashing towards the door leading to the Gryffindor common room and out the portal into the school proper, Peter following fast on my heels. "Peter, I'm sorry." 

"Don't apologize to me," he uttered as he ran. "The one you'll want to apologize to would be Remus. And James. If they even make it through the night." 

And for the first time in over a month, I no longer cursed neither Snape nor the wiles of fate for breaking our group of friends down -- but instead, I cursed myself. The Marauders would never again be the same, and it was because of me -- for truly, I was no better than Snape, and I deserved no such friendship from any of them. As Peter and I sprinted through the halls, out the great entryway and across the Quiddich pitch to the path leading to the Whomping Willow, I hoped against all hope that we would reach James in time to save him and Remus from what may very well have been the biggest mistake of my life... 

...owari... 


End file.
